Limitation and Tort Claims: Part VII of the Schedule, the Continuing Tort, and the Extensions

Part VII of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, 1963 deals with suits relating to torts, and its most striking feature is that the torts most likely to injure reputation or liberty carry the shortest period, one year, while damage to property carries three. Negligence and personal injury have no article of their own and fall under the residuary Article 113, three years from when the right to sue accrues. Two provisions modify the scheme substantially: section 22, under which a continuing tort never becomes time barred while it continues, and section 17, which postpones time where the right of action has been concealed by fraud.

The one, two and three year articles, section 22, accrual and the extensions

1. The One Year Articles

• Article 74 explains why a malicious prosecution suit cannot be brought early. Time runs from the termination of the prosecution, which is also the second essential of the tort, so the two rules align: the suit is premature before termination and time barred a year after it.
• Article 73 runs from when the imprisonment ends, and not from when it began, which matters where the detention was prolonged.
• Article 76 has two limbs, because slander actionable per se and slander requiring special damage accrue at different moments.

2. The Two and Three Year Articles

• Article 113 is the important one in practice, because negligence and personal injury have no article of their own and fall under it. So does nuisance, so does deceit, and so do most of the torts that are litigated.
• Article 82 gives two years from the date of death for a claim under the Fatal Accidents Act, 1855, which is longer than the general residuary period would suggest and is specific to that Act.
• Article 84 runs from knowledge, which is unusual in the Schedule and is the closest thing in it to a discovery rule.

3. When the Cause of Action Accrues

• Where the tort is actionable per se, the cause of action accrues on the date of the act: trespass, assault, battery, false imprisonment, libel.
• Where damage is an ingredient of the tort, it accrues when the damage occurs, and not when the careless act was done. In negligence there is no cause of action until damage is suffered, so a careless act that harms nobody starts no clock.
• Latent damage is the difficulty. A negligently constructed foundation may crack twenty years after the work was done, and on a strict application of the rule the claim may be barred before the plaintiff knew he had one.
• India has no statutory discovery rule of the kind adopted in England by the Latent Damage Act 1986, which provides an alternative period running from knowledge subject to a long stop.
• The Indian courts have mitigated the problem through Article 113 itself, by holding that the right to sue accrues when the plaintiff has a complete cause of action of which he could reasonably have been aware, and through section 17 where the defendant concealed the wrong.

4. Continuing Torts

• The distinction is between a continuing wrong and continuing damage. A wrong that is renewed moment by moment is a continuing tort; a wrong committed once whose consequences endure is not, however long the consequences last.
• The practical importance is that an encroachment or a nuisance can be sued upon at any time, which is why boundary and nuisance disputes are rarely defeated by limitation.

5. The Extensions

• Section 6: legal disability. Where a person entitled to institute a suit is, at the time from which the period is to be reckoned, a minor, insane, or an idiot, he may institute the suit within the same period after the disability has ceased as would otherwise have been allowed from the time prescribed. Where the disability continues to his death, his legal representative may sue within the same period after the death.
• Section 17: effect of fraud or mistake. Where the suit is based upon the fraud of the defendant, or the knowledge of the right of action is concealed by fraud, or the suit is for relief from the consequences of a mistake, the period does not begin to run until the plaintiff has discovered the fraud or the mistake, or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it.
• Section 18: acknowledgment, which is of limited application in tort since a tort liability is rarely acknowledged in writing before the period expires.
• Section 5 does not apply to suits. It permits the extension of the prescribed period for appeals and applications on sufficient cause, and expressly not for suits, so a tort suit filed out of time cannot be saved by explaining the delay.
• Section 3 is mandatory. A suit instituted after the prescribed period must be dismissed although limitation has not been set up as a defence, so the court must apply the Act of its own motion.

6. Motor Accident Claims: A Live Question

• The six month limitation in section 166(3) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 was omitted in 1994, with the result that for nearly three decades a motor accident claim was subject to no limitation at all, and tribunals entertained claims filed years after the accident.
• It was reintroduced by the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 with effect from 1 April 2022: no application for compensation shall be entertained unless it is made within six months of the occurrence of the accident.
• Its constitutionality is under challenge in Bhagirathi Dash v. Union of India, on the ground that a six month cap is arbitrary and violates Articles 14, 19 and 21, particularly since a claimant may be hospitalised, may be a dependant unaware of his rights, or may be a minor.
• On 7 November 2025 the Supreme Court directed, by interim order, that tribunals and High Courts shall not dismiss claim petitions as barred by the limitation prescribed by section 166(3), pending the decision of the petition.
• The practical position for a claimant is therefore that a claim should be filed within six months if possible, and that a claim filed later is presently protected from dismissal on that ground by the interim order, whose continuance depends on the outcome of the challenge.

7. The Position Stated Shortly

1. Part VII of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, 1963 governs suits relating to torts, and the reputation and liberty torts carry the shortest period.

2. One year applies to false imprisonment from when it ends, malicious prosecution from termination, libel from publication, slander from the words or the special damage, and inducing breach of contract from the breach.

3. Two years applies to a claim under the Indian Fatal Accidents Act, 1855, running from the date of the death.

4. Three years applies to trespass on immovable property, obstruction or diversion of a watercourse, infringement of copyright, waste, and wrongful taking, detaining or injuring movable property.

5. Article 113 is the residuary article, three years from when the right to sue accrues, and it governs negligence, personal injury, nuisance and deceit.

6. Where the tort is actionable per se the cause of action accrues on the date of the act; where damage is an ingredient it accrues when the damage occurs.

7. India has no statutory discovery rule for latent damage of the kind enacted in England in 1986.

8. Section 22 gives a fresh period at every moment during which a continuing tort continues, so a continuing nuisance, trespass or detention never becomes time barred while it continues.

9. Section 6 extends time for a minor, an insane person or an idiot; section 17 postpones it where the right of action was concealed by fraud; and section 5 does not apply to suits.

10. The six month limitation in section 166(3) of the Motor Vehicles Act, reintroduced from 1 April 2022, is under challenge, and by an interim order of 7 November 2025 no claim petition is to be dismissed as barred by it.